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Ryan Tannehill

Discussion in 'Other NFL' started by bbqpitlover, Oct 16, 2019.

Ryan Tannehill is...

  1. A terrible QB

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. A below average QB

    4 vote(s)
    5.7%
  3. An average QB

    7 vote(s)
    10.0%
  4. An above average QB

    39 vote(s)
    55.7%
  5. An elite QB

    16 vote(s)
    22.9%
  6. The GOAT.

    4 vote(s)
    5.7%
  1. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    No that's not addressing the question. The question is whether the discrepancy in pass dropbacks is mostly explained by how often Titans + Tannehill played with a lead vs. Miami + Tannehill.

    The question is not whether Tannehill's passing efficiency was primarily responsible for the decrease in pass dropback percentage. There's no question the decrease in pass dropback percentage was due to the entire team. My point is that Tannehill was part of the team, so the causal relation isn't just in one direction.

    You made it a comparison with Miami in post #9190 (the post I responded to).

    However, it is true that in order to answer this question you'd need league-wide stats, and not just from 2019 since the Miami years are being compared to. You'd basically need to know 2 things to answer the question: 1) league-wide pass dropbacks as a function of point differential, and 2) percent dropbacks for Tannehill in Miami and in Tennessee as a function of point differential. Then you could estimate expected discrepancy in pass dropbacks if you equated distributions for Miami and Tennessee (i.e., the stats you were referencing).
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2020
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  2. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    You cannot say this at all. Henry is not the only change in the supporting cast for Tannehill. In fact, everything was different. But, for Henry pre and post Tannehill in 2019, almost the only change in the supporting cast is Tannehill.
     
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  3. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    It is also clear that they asked Tannehill to throw more (and Henry run less) in the first few games he started. It makes no sense to trust him less after a few stellar games that saw him completely revitalize the Titans offense. No, the change came in the KC game, when they saw what happened when the passing and rushing offenses completely complemented each other.
     
  4. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The question being addressed here is whether Tannehill's low passing volume in 2019 was caused by his own performance in 2019.

    The contention goes something like, "of course he didn't throw the ball often -- when you run on first and second down and then complete a 50-yard bomb for a touchdown on third down, you don't need to pass as much."

    So in other words, the contention is that Tannehill's low passing volume in 2019 was caused by either 1) his own passing efficiency in 2019, and/or 2) his team's scoring margin in 2019.

    The correlation between Tannehill's YPA (his passing efficiency) and his percentage of pass dropbacks, game-by-game in 2019 (including the playoffs), was a mere -0.06. There was no relationship between his passing efficiency and his percentage of pass dropbacks. Therefore his passing efficiency couldn't have caused his low passing volume.

    The Titans' scoring margin after three quarters during Tannehill's starts in 2019 (including the playoffs) was 1.83 points per game. That was 0.32 standard deviations above the league average. Tannehill's percentage of pass dropbacks in quarters 1 through 3 during the same games however was 1.98 standard deviations below the league average.

    Compare that with Baltimore -- the only team that passed the ball less frequently in 2019 -- which had a scoring margin after three quarters of 12.5 points per game, or 2.2 standard deviations above the league average. For that team it's indeed sensible to say they ran the ball so much more frequently to run out the clock and protect a lead. For the Titans however it isn't. The Titans' extremely low passing frequency is nowhere near as well-explained by a positive scoreboard differential.

    The remaining explanation as I see it is what I said above: choosing to feature a running back who plays well despite being keyed on by defenses, while having the quarterback play a far smaller than typical, complementary role. If a quarterback can sit back and pick apart with a select few passes opposing defenses that are keyed on a running back, obviously his performance will be bolstered.

    Now enter the 0.64 correlation between Tannehill's passer rating and Derrick Henry's yards per carry, game-by-game, which was more than two standard deviations above the league average in 2019. Enter as well the -0.64 correlation between Derrick Henry's yards per carry and Tannehill's percentage of pass dropbacks, game-by-game. Tannehill's percentage of pass dropbacks was far more strongly correlated with Derrick Henry's efficiency than with his own.

    And in that sense, and which is consistent with the above data, Tannehill's passing volume had little or nothing to do with his own performance.
     
  5. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    Add to that playing while trailing by just a little. The advanced splits don't tell us that. In either case, his efficiency in 2019 was good regardless of the situation.

    upload_2020-9-2_13-53-5.png
     
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  6. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    You're not reading what you're responding to. I never claimed his low passing volume was (primarily) caused by his own performance. I just got through telling you that. Once again, the question is whether his pass dropback percentage can be explained by the discrepancy in point differential between Tennessee and Miami for passing plays.

    Why are you changing stats? In post #9188 you said the correlation between percentage of pass dropbacks and passer rating (passing efficiency, taking into account that TD's and INT's matter) was -0.23. So causality is possible here.

    That's at least going in the direction of answering the question. However, how you get to that scoring margin at the end of quarter #3 matters. Maybe the Titans were more likely to have a small positive scoring margin throughout quarters 1-3 than most other teams, which would make those stats align more with each other.

    Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the discrepancy in pass dropback percentage could not be explained by game context alone. It's just that I'd be real surprised if game context had little to do with it.
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2020
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  7. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    Yeah I'll admit that. We don't have enough data for Tannehill + Titans - Henry to tease that apart.
     
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  8. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Right, and I know you aren't saying that. The discussion emanated from what others have said about the cause of Tannehill's low passing volume.

    It permits a cleaner comparison with the correlation with Derrick Henry's efficiency -- YPA versus YPC -- and it addresses the contention that Tannehill's low passing volume was caused by the length of his pass completions (i.e., "he doesn't need to pass as much when he gets the team down the field with fewer passes").

    Well and let me clarify, I'm not trying to explain the discrepancy between his passing volume in Miami and Tennessee. I'm explaining whether his passing volume in 2019 was associated with factors specific to 2019.

    And here are the stats for that: in Tannehill's starts (including the playoffs), Tennessee was 0.86 standard deviations above the league average in scoring margin after the first quarter. At the half they were 0.16 standard deviations below the league average in scoring margin. Again compare that to Baltimore, the only team that passed the ball less frequently, for which those figures were 2.0 and 1.9 standard deviations.

    What you see here in the comparison with Baltimore is that the quarterback (Lamar Jackson) was being used as a primary runner, thus allowing him to pass the ball far less frequently. In Tennessee however that rushing load was carried by Derrick Henry, not Ryan Tannehill, thus allowing Tannehill to sit back and pick apart defenses keyed on Derrick Henry with a select few passes.

    In fact Jackson may have had quite a few more pass dropbacks than Tannehill, if you consider that he ran after dropping back to pass on many occasions, whereas Tannehill did not. In terms of pass dropbacks per se (i.e., share of the offensive workload), Tannehill could've been an even bigger outlier.
     
  9. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    So that chart shows that Tannehill played better when trailing, and the majority of his throws came when trailing? That doesn't sound like a QB who the offense isn't dependent on. It sounds like when they needed points, they went to the passing game.
     
  10. FinFaninBuffalo

    FinFaninBuffalo Well-Known Member

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    I suspect a large number of those attempts were when trailing by a score or less. For the Titans, they treated that as tied. They were very good at not getting out of their game plan.
     
  11. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    OK, but if you don't restrict it to "length per pass completion" and talk about impact of play, then you have the possibility for causality. Point is you can't rule causality out, even if the effect turns out to be minor (who knows).

    Well then we have nothing to argue about per the previous discussion on the effect of volume or pass dropbacks.

    OK, so this is a separate topic. The big question here is can you show that random variation can't explain it. Remember, with passing volume you have that correlation graph I gave you, with pass dropbacks it looks like it might just be small sample size, and with some of these context-dependent stats the stats might look closer to expected once you take context into account.

    So the challenge is to really show something is not just random variation. Anyway, that discussion I'm not too interested in unless you claim to show statistical significance. My entry into this discussion was only to point out how the stats aren't making a clear cut case for causality being in only one direction.
     
  12. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    When they were trailing during Tannehill's starts (including the playoffs), they passed the ball 62% of the time, below the league average of 67% when trailing. Compare that to Drew Brees and Patrick Mahomes, who passed the ball 75% and 71% of the time when trailing, respectively. So Tennessee was a team that maintained its imbalance in favor of the run game -- in comparison to the league norm -- even when trailing, even though it featured the league leader in passer rating. In terms of run-pass ratio when trailing, they weren't functioning like a team that had Drew Brees or Patrick Mahomes, even though Tannehill was outplaying them statistically.
     
  13. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Were they more or less successful? I mean, honestly, it makes sense to try to maintain balance. I'm don't understand why you think that's a knock.
     
  14. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I'm not saying it's a knock. I'm merely saying that they weren't treating Tannehill as a team does a top QB in the league, even though he was performing as the top QB in the league. It's as if the emphasis on restricting his role was always more important than the way he was playing. That begs the question of whether his performance was dependent on that restricted role, and they knew it.
     
  15. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I mean, does it matter? Clearly Tennessee was pleased with his play, and signed him to a pretty good contract as a result. Would certainly seem that Tennessee doesn't think that his play last season will be hard to replicate. If they thought that, why would they resign him him to a fairly big contract? $91,000,000 guaranteed is pretty significant.
     
  16. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    They're certainly behind him.
     
  17. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    Quarterback calculation formula[​IMG]
     
  18. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Just about every team nowadays has an analytics department that's doing analogous stuff.
     
  19. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    It would be nice if the people who create these types of images actually use equations that aren't nonsensical. A lot of that stuff doesn't even have a meaning: integrals without differentials, missing parenthesis, undefined limits, and not even knowing what a logarithm is. You can't just write "ln" without an argument — natural log of what??

    Complete nonsense.

    It's like randomly selecting words from a dictionary, stringing them together, and claiming it means something.
     
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  20. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I think that was exactly his point. Lol.

    You know it wasn't supposed to be an actual mathematical formula, right? :couch:
     
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  21. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    But we don't have that problem when math is used to demonstrate that Tannehill played significantly better in Tennessee than he did in Miami. For that we get behind the math. It's only when the math is used to qualify that with other data that it becomes caricatured.... :huh:
     
  22. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    No...it's that you use the maths to prove that the levels he hit were somehow not really the levels he hit. :2guns::crapstrom:
     
  23. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    The math I've used addresses the degree of difficulty of his accomplishments. Anybody who continues to believe that Ryan Tannehill isn't as good as Patrick Mahomes and Drew Brees, despite that he outplayed them statistically in 2019, should resonate with that math and its findings.
     
  24. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    It all depends on what you mean. Like I said earlier, Tannehill might be a better actual passer than Mahomes, but Mahomes is far better at escaping and improvising. So "better" can be somewhat subjective. How good would Mahomes be playing with trash around him, under Joe Philbin instead of Andy Reid, who makes QBs look awesome? I mean, he'd still be good, but would he be MVP good? It's not an easy question to answer.
     
  25. AGuyNamedAlex

    AGuyNamedAlex Well-Known Member

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    Andy Reid is the only guy I'd 100% trust to develop a QB. Literally any QB I think, regardless of how talented they are, benefits from Reid.
     
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  26. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Damn right.
     
  27. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Are you guys able to identify any quarterback in history who had exceptionally good individual ability? And by that I mean individual ability significantly better than an average QB, independent of whatever surroundings he and other (average) QBs have experienced. Would Andy Reid have vaulted Jay Fiedler into the Hall of Fame?

    It's ironic, because on the one hand you tout QBs' surroundings as highly explanatory in their performance, but on the other you poo-poo the findings I've accumulated in this thread that do exactly that -- point to the benefit of Tannehill's 2019 surroundings.
     
  28. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Surroundings allow QBs to really show their skills. Just like it benefits other players. Damien Williams looked very different for KC than for Miami. A good QB on a bad team won't look as good as he would on a good team.
     
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  29. AGuyNamedAlex

    AGuyNamedAlex Well-Known Member

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    Of course people have different levels of talent. It's just in most cases the talent is pretty close in professional sports.

    If you're Peyton Manning your surroundings are going to matter a bit less. However, the odds of having one of those 2-3 QBs in the league that transcend their surroundings is incredibly slim.

    So we have to accept that individual talent exists but also that in most cases the level of talent around a player and the way they fit together will play a role in individual success.

    Youd obviously rather pair your amazing QB with amazing talent if possible to maximize his own success right? So obviously to SOME degree surroundings have to matter.
     
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  30. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    I've given the example before, but take all the starting QBs in the league, and stick them out in a skills competition...throwing through various targets at various distances, throwing into buckets, etc. How much different do you think it would be from "best" QBs to "worst" QBs? I think it would be much closer than people think. The difference is largely in physical/mental ability of QBs to deal with situations that aren't ideal. Like, Mahomes or Wilson don't need a great offensive line, since they possess inmate physical agility to avoid rushers that most QBs don't have.
     
  31. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I don't disagree with the above. The question about the interaction between individual ability and surroundings in this case centers on the fact that Tannehill outplayed every QB in the league in 2019. If you don't believe that means he's the best QB in the league, then by extension you must believe (on perhaps an unconscious level) he had exceptionally good surroundings. There's no other way around it. And the math I've done here simply explores the nature of those surroundings as they relate to his performance.

    So I'm not sure where the seemingly interminable general disagreement in this thread comes from. Do you all really believe Tannehill has greater individual ability than every QB in the league? If you don't, then we're agreeing, and the math I've offered here simply supports that -- for all of us.

    If somebody came up to you and said, "don't you think Ryan Tannehill is better than Drew Brees and Patrick Mahomes because of how he played in 2019," your response was "no," and the person responded "why do you say that," what would you use to support your response? I would suggest you use what I've offered here, but instead we're debating it.
     
  32. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    Will 3, then you're arguing against something no one has claimed, and maybe that is the problem. Literally no one is claiming that Tannehill is the best QB in the league. No one is claiming that Tannehill wasn't better, results-wise, due to a better situation. You come across as saying that Tannehill was ONLY successful because of the better situation. Tannehill was successful because he had better players/coaches around him, AND because he has the skills to make the most difficult throws on the field.
     
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  33. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    And that has to be the case, because he has six previous years at one level of performance, and 11 games at his 2019 level. Whatever difference in success there was has to be a function of situational differences. The only contention here is whether his situation went from horrendous to average, or from average to exceptionally good.

    I contend the latter, simply because he outplayed every QB in the league. How can his situation not have been exceptionally good if 1) he outplayed every QB in the league, and 2) none of us thinks he's better than every QB in the league?
     
  34. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    And this is the Merry go round. You insist that the Miami years are the real Tannehill. You revert to looking at results. You ignore the tumultuous first couple years. You ignore the poor teams around him the last couple years.

    You don't allow the chance that Tannehill was actually better than you thought in Miami, because the results weren't there. Then you conclude that he must have had exceptional surroundings in Tennessee because that's the only way an at best average QB could do that.

    But it's really based on your conclusions about Miami.
     
  35. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    That's actually the only way any QB could have done that, if he isn't the best QB in the league. How does a QB who isn't the best QB in the league outplay the best QBs in the league without exceptionally good surroundings?
     
  36. resnor

    resnor Derp Sherpa

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    It's like you haven't read anything posted even on this page.
     
  37. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Point me to where on the page it says how a QB who isn't the best in the league outplays every QB in the league without exceptionally good surroundings.
     
  38. The_Dark_Knight

    The_Dark_Knight Defender of the Truth

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    But that’s exactly how we football people feel when posts contain mathematical statistics without any relation to the actual game itself. It’s just as nonsensical.

    Take for instance a certain individual who poses the “low volume” argument with no actual reasoning behind Tannehill’s low volume of passing plays. Said poster fails to take into account the actual yardage Tannehill achieved on each of his throws. When he’s picking up 30-35 yards per completion, it’s only common sense he won’t throw as many passes. There’s only 100 yards on a field. He doesn’t take into account actual production, only attempts.

    If I had to choose between a “high volume” quarterback that needs 3-4 passes to pick up 30-35 yards and a quarterback that only needed 1 pass to pick up the same yardage, I’m choosing the latter. It opens your playbook to so many options to keep your opponents defense off balance.

    To argue “deviation from league average” without taking into account actual production is as nonsensical as that formula I posted.
     
  39. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    Based on the highlighted portion above, Tannehill should've had fewer pass attempts in the games in 2019 in which he threw for more yardage per pass attempt. However, that didn't happen. Once again, the correlation between Tannehill's YPA (yards per pass attempt) and his percentage of pass dropbacks, game-by-game in 2019, was a mere -0.06. Here are those data:

    % Pass Dropbacks ; YPA
    33.33 ; 9.9
    36.54 ; 14.39
    45.76 ; 14.48
    46.94 ; 9.53
    48.28 ; 8.27
    51.67 ; 10.76
    55.17 ; 10.07
    56.72 ; 7.75
    63.16 ; 5.85
    66.67 ; 9
    67.19 ; 8.49
    28.3 ; 6.3
    58.62 ; 6.74
    28.07 ; 4.8

    Do you notice a pattern? If you don't it's because there isn't one.

    So, what we have here is yet another instance in which you have a personal theory that's controverted by data (and math), yet you cling to the theory as though it's supported by the data. The same thing has gone on here many times with regard to your "winning by running the football" belief that @cbrad has corrected you on many times.

    Sometimes you have to admit you're wrong, but you have trouble with that. Then you take to criticism of the method by which you're proven wrong (math). Of course when we use the same kind of math to show that Tannehill performed significantly better in Tennessee than in Miami, you have no problem with it.

    When the math supports what you believe, you get behind it. When it doesn't, you cling to what you believe and criticize and caricature the math.
     
  40. The Guy

    The Guy Well-Known Member

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    I'd like to invite all the posters here who have opposed my position in this thread in one way or another to weigh in on the following questions if you would:

    1) Do you believe Ryan Tannehill is the best quarterback in the league?

    2) If you don't believe that, how do you explain the fact that in 2019 he outplayed every quarterback in the league?
     

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